This blog exists to support liberatory collectivist activism that is anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism. It also seeks to center the experiences, theories, and agendas of radical and feminist women of color.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

U.S. Defence Department Employees and Contractors Secretly Purchase Photographs of Children Being Raped and are Not Charged with Committing Any Crime: Anything Wrong with That Picture?

Who, exactly, is the U.S. defence department defending? What it tells us is that it is fighting terrorism--searching, scouring the globe for those awful terrorists who have no regard whatsoever for human life; terrorists who would commit atrocity without thinking twice about it. The Pentagon tells us it is in the business of rooting out this level of grotesque and inexcusable inhumanity.

But when we examine the evidence of what the Pentagon does and doesn't consider criminal, we are led to a different conclusion about is function. The new answer appears to that the Defence Department defends terrorist rapers of children and women, and terrorist murderers of people of color who live in countries our troops militarily occupy. So the Pentagon, in other words, is pro-terror, pro-violence, and pro-violation unless or until a rich white het guy who works for the U.S. government is murdered by someone other than the U.S government. (Because when the U.S. government's military murders its own soldiers, that is called, perversely, "friendly fire".)

Only to someone in tremendous denial does the fact that the Pentagon is in the business of genocidal slaughter and serial rape come across as implausible. Denial is a fundamental value, however, in a society that thrives on such abuse and deems it "necessary" for maintaining "democracy" and "freedom" (for a few rich white het men).

What are the military's rapists and rape-defenders' public reasons for participating in networks of child sexual slavery and trafficking? What governing principles are being defended when rapers and consumers of rape are defended and deemed innocent of committing any crime?

Why, if the U.S. government is genuinely against the practice of rape and child sexual assault, would the crime of possession of child pornography be overlooked by prosecutors working within the U.S. Defence Department? Why, also, are street prostitutes, poor Mexican migrant workers, U.S. Muslim citizens, and Black adults driving cars down public roads all stereotyped and flagged as criminals and terrorists? To state outright that there's a racist, classist, misogynist, and child-hating "double standard" doesn't begin to describe this travesty.

Tragically, this behavior by rich and powerful white het men is entirely consistent with the unprofessed not-so-public values of the Pentagon. Not only do their employees and contractors value and profit from the murder of innocent and generally poor people of color. They also value treating human life (that is not that of the few white rich and powerful white het men) as if it is worthless. Thus these elite predators treat as acceptable the possession of photographic evidence of child rape. Child pornography is, when it exists in computers, electronically purchased evidence which, in and of itself, is a crucial and additional part of the crime committed. To rape is child is one kind of heinous act. One might, if humane, make a case that it is an act of terrorism. To record the rape and mass distribute the violation of the child is an exponential expansion of the violation and loss of control of the children so raped.

People who are not elites--whether U.S. male soldiers, female U.S. soldiers routinely raped by those male soldiers, civilians sexually and otherwise assaulted and traumatised in countries occupied militarily by the U.S., or trafficked and incested children--apparently exist to be used, violated, terrorised, and thrown away. Welcome to the actual ethical standards and practices of the employees and employers of the U.S. armed services: pro-terror and anti-freedom.

I found what follows at the following site/link:

MSTnews: Your online resource for everything about Military Sexual Trauma

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department — including some with the highest available security clearance — who used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show.

The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions.

In a related inquiry, the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) cross-checked the ICE list against military databases to come up with a list of Defense employees and contractors who appeared to be guilty of purchasing child pornography. The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the DCIS opened investigations into only 20 percent of the individuals identified, and succeeded in prosecuting just a handful.

The Boston Globe first reported the Pentagon’s role in Project Flicker in July, citing DCIS investigative reports (PDF) showing that at least 30 Defense Department employees were investigated.

But new Project Flicker investigative reports obtained by The Upshot through the Freedom of Information Act, which you can read here, show that DCIS investigators identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online. Astonishingly, nine of those had “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information” security clearances, meaning they had access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets. All told, 76 of the individuals had Secret or higher clearances. But DCIS investigated only 52 of the suspects, and just 10 were ever charged with viewing or purchasing child pornography. Without greater public disclosure of how these cases wound down, it’s impossible to know how or whether any of the names listed in the Project Flicker papers came in for additional scrutiny. It’s conceivable that some of them were picked up by local law enforcement, but it seems likely that most of the people flagged by the investigation did not have their military careers disrupted in the context of the DCIS inquiry.

Among those charged were Gary Douglass Grant, a captain in the Army Reserves and a judge advocate general, or military prosecutor. After investigators executing a search warrant found child pornography on his computer, he pleaded guilty last year to state charges of possession of obscene matter of a minor in a sexual act in California. Others included contractors for the NSA with Top Secret clearances; one of them — a former contractor — fled the country after being indicted and is believed to be in Libya.

But the vast majority of those investigated, including an active-duty lieutenant colonel in the Army and an official in the office of the secretary of defense, were never charged. On top of that, 212 people on ICE’s list were never investigated at all.

According to the records, DCIS prioritized the investigations by focusing on people who had security clearances — since those who have a taste for child pornography can be vulnerable to blackmail and espionage. The documents show that the probe then concentrated on people who had been previously suspected of or convicted of sex crimes, or had access to children as part of their Defense Department duties. But at least some of the people on the Project Flicker list with security clearances were never pursued and could possibly remain on the job: DCIS only investigated 52 people, and 76 of those on the Project Flicker list had clearances.

A DCIS spokesman didn’t return phone calls. But the agency’s own documents obtained via The Upshot’s FOIA request indicate that the decision to press investigations forward hinged largely on questions of the resources available to the investigators. “Due to DCIS headquarters’ direction and other DCIS investigative priorities, this investigation is cancelled” is a common summation in the files.

A source familiar with the Project Flicker investigations — who requested anonymity because public disclosure could jeopardize this person’s job — confirmed that departmental resources, and priorities, were decisive factors in letting inquiries lapse.

DCIS is primarily tasked with rooting out contractor fraud and investigating security breaches; its 400 staffers were already plenty busy before Project Flicker dropped 264 more names onto their caseloads. And child pornography investigations are difficult to prosecute. Many judges wouldn’t issue search warrants based on years-old evidence saying the targets subscribed to a kiddie porn website once.

“We were stuck in a situation where we had some great information, but didn’t have the resources to run with it,” the source told The Upshot. Many of the investigative reports obtained by The Upshot end with a similar citation of scarce resources:

Of course, other federal agencies, including ICE and the FBI, may have prosecuted some of the Project Flicker names the DCIS ignored. But that’s unlikely, given that some of the DCIS investigations were closed due to lack of cooperation from ICE.

In one case, involving an Army Reserve corporal in the Pittsburgh area, a DCIS agent expressed exasperation after repeatedly trying to get ICE to collaborate with him on the investigation: “Based upon the complete non-responsiveness of ICE … it is recommended that [the] matter be closed.”

As for the 212 Project Flicker names that DCIS didn’t investigate, the source familiar with the investigation said there was no systematic effort to inform their superiors or commanding officers of their suspected purchases of child pornography.

3 comments:

Just knowing that there are people who watch this stuff makes my belief in humanity drop off into nothing. I mean, if there were a video of terrible things happening to me or you, how many people would watch it and like watching it? 20 percent of people? 90 percent of people? If it just popped up in front of them and they could watch it and no one would know?

I HATE that we hold videos of crimes and make them public, have we changed that yet? In fact I HATE that they make social workers watch this stuff. NO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WATCH THAT TO HAVE EMPATHY AND COMPASSION AND BE A GOOD SERVICE PROVIDER. It's sick.

How convenient that this report on military personnel and private contractors purchasing/viewing child porn, not once mentions the biological sex of the 'people' using child porn.

Given military careers are apparently at risk if the perpetrators were to be charged I doubt very much the individuals viewing child porn are women because overwhelmingly military careers and private contractors contine to be male-dominated and hence 'people' is code for men.

So why does the article deliberately hide the biological sex of the buyers of child porn? Because the fact such purchasers are powerful men must always remain hidden. Women however are never accorded this 'privilege' rather their biological sex is always the first word mentioned in headlines and within the body of news reports. Women are never 'people' or 'individuals' - no they are always women.

This report also demonstrates for the umpteenth time how white male power operates, because powerful men who view child porn are deemed to be 'above the law' since this is only applied to all women and those men who are not white and powerful.

It matters not one iota that certain powerful males can be blackmailed because of their obsession with viewing child porn. The real issue is these men are committing a crime in viewing child porn and yet that is ignored because their viewing female and male children being subjected to sadistic male sexual violence is trivalised because the male viewers/purchasers are supposedly 'vulnerable to blackmail.' What about the rights of the girls and boys who are being systematically subjected to male sexual violence in order that adult men can be 'entertained?'

Oh so it is fine for men in very powerful positions to view images of males engaged in sadistic sexual torture of girl and boy children and their proclivity in such viewing must be protected at all times. The atrocities males commit against girl and boy children is apparently irrelevant because the only issue is supposedly combatting 'terrorism.'

Filming males engaged in sadistic sexual torture of girls and boys is systemic terrorism and violates all children's human rights, but once again men's interests, men's desires, men's 'needs' always supercede those supposedly inferior beings - girls' and boys' right not to be subjected to male sexual violence for the 'entertainment' and pleasure of adult male buyers.

Thank you. It is rather sobering to see how UNcriminal human rights crimes-against-humanity become when the population of perpetrators is a certain class of institutionally protected white men and the population of those harmed and violated in unambiguously heinous ways are female and/or children.

Protection of entitlements and privileges by men to perpetrate against women is a necessary component of any patriarchal system.

It is beyond me how reasonable, humane, caring, compassionate people can decide that we live in a post-feminist era with rampant gross sexual abuse and slavery when, as you highlight, it is MEN who are the primary predatory abusers, and females of various ages who are the primary population of victims.